Analysts hound Biogen with questions over Aduhelm’s $56K price point as news of Alzheimer’s OK ripples through global markets

Michel Vounatsos, Biogen CEO (Credit: World Economic Forum/Valeriano Di Domenico)

June 8, 2021 11:19 AM EDTUpdated 04:18 PM

Pharma

Analysts hound Biogen with questions over Aduhelm's $56K price point as news of Alzheimer's OK ripples through global markets

Max Gelman

Senior Editor

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

It’s been nearly 24 hours since the FDA handed down its controversial decision to approve Biogen’s Aduhelm drug for Alzheimer’s disease, and reactions from around the industry are pouring in as analysts try to size up the ramifications of Monday’s news.

Biogen hosted an investor call Tuesday morning, providing a forum for a number of topics that have been top of mind. The call came as the news of Aduhelm’s approval in the US rippled through global markets, while $BIIB stock soared to around $380 apiece (up from $286 on Friday), as Biogen’s partners at Eisai seek new approvals in Asia.

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Biotech investors and CEOs see two paths to growth, but are they equally viable?

Noël Brown

Head of US Biotechnology Investment Banking, RBC Capital Markets

The dynamic in the biotech market has been highly volatile in the last few years, from the high peaks immediately after the COVID vaccine in 2021, to the lowest downturns of the last 20 years in 2022. This uncertainty makes calling the exact timing of the market’s turn something of a fool’s errand, according to Dr. Chen Yu, Founder and Managing Partner of TCG Crossover (TCG X). He speaks with RBC’s Noël Brown, Head of US Biotechnology Investment Banking, about the market’s road ahead and two possible paths for growth.

Vlad Coric, Biohaven CEO

October 4, 2022 03:06 PM EDTUpdated 03:37 PM

Pharma

Vlad Coric charts course for new Biohaven with neuroscience push and Big Pharma vets on board

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

What’s Biohaven without its CGRP portfolio? That’s what CEO Vlad Coric is tasked with deciding as he maps out the new Biohaven post-Pfizer takeover.

Pfizer officially scooped up Biohaven’s CGRP assets on Monday, including blockbuster migraine drug Nurtec and the investigational zavegepant, for $11.6 billion. As a result, Coric spun the broader pipeline into an independent company on Tuesday — with the same R&D team behind Nurtec but about 1,000 fewer staffers and a renewed focus on neuroscience and rare disease.

In AstraZeneca's latest campaign, wild eosinophils called Phils personify the acting up often seen in uncontrolled asthma

October 4, 2022 02:54 PM EDT

Pharma

Marketing

AstraZeneca debuts annoying purple ‘Phil’ creatures, personified asthma eosinophils ‘behaving badly’

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

There are some odd-looking purple creatures lurking around the halls of AstraZenca lately. The “Phil” character cutouts are purple, personified eosinophils with big buggy eyes and wide mouths, and they’re a part of AZ’s newest awareness effort to help people understand eosinophilic asthma.

The “Asthma Behaving Badly” characters aren’t only on the walls at AZ to show the new campaign to employees, however. The “Phils” are also showing up online on the campaign website, and in digital and social ads and posts on Facebook and Instagram.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Senior Quality Assurance Compliance Specialist

Lonza

Houston, TX, USA

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Casey McPherson shows his daughters Rose (left) and Weston around Everlum Bio, a lab that he co-founded to spark a treatment for Rose and others with ultra-rare conditions. (Ilana Panich-Linsman)

October 4, 2022 06:00 AM EDTUpdated 11:21 AM

People

Pharma

In Focus

Father starts lab after intellectual property issues stymie rare disease drug development

Jared Whitlock

Features Editor

Under bright lab lights, Casey McPherson holds his 6-year-old daughter, Rose. His free hand directs Rose’s gaze toward a computer screen with potential clues in treating her one-of-a kind genetic condition.

Gray specks on the screen show her cells that scientists reprogrammed with the goal of zeroing in on a custom medicine. McPherson co-founded the lab, Everlum Bio, to spark a treatment for Rose — and others like her. A regarded singer-songwriter, McPherson never imagined going into drug development.

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Christophe Bourdon, Leo Pharma CEO

October 4, 2022 03:39 PM EDT

Pharma

Marketing

Leo Pharma looks 'beyond the skin' in atopic dermatitis awareness campaign

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

As Leo Pharma aims to take on heavyweight champ Dupixent in atopic dermatitis, the company is launching “AD Days Around the World,” an awareness campaign documenting real patient stories across Europe.

The project, unveiled on Monday, spotlights four patients: Marjolaine, Laura, Julia and África from France, Italy, Germany and Spain, respectively, in short video clips on the challenges of living with AD, the most common form of eczema.

Ying Huang, Legend CEO

October 4, 2022 02:52 PM EDT

Pharma

Manufacturing

Lentiviral vector ramp-up: J&J and Legend to invest $500M in New Jersey manufacturing to support Carvykti

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

In response to a question on manufacturing scale at Legend Biotech’s R&D day yesterday, the company’s top exec said its partnership with Johnson & Johnson will be doubling its investment in its New Jersey manufacturing center and will be investing a total of $500 million.

With an eye on their BCMA-directed CAR-T therapy Carvykti (cilta-cel), approved in February as a fifth-line treatment for multiple myeloma, Legend CEO Ying Huang said that the ramp-up in production and the decision to manufacture its own lentiviral vectors — currently in shortage worldwide — means they won’t have to deal with that shortage.

October 4, 2022 12:55 PM EDT

Pharma

Marketing

MarketingRx roundup: Novartis recruits NFL coach for Leqvio campaign; Pfizer promotes ‘Science’ merch on social media

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

Novartis is turning to a winning coach to talk about Leqvio and the struggles of high cholesterol — including his own. Bruce Arians, the retired NFL head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and Super Bowl-winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is partnering with the pharma for its “Coaching Cholesterol” digital, social and public relations effort.

In the campaign, Arians talks about the potential for “great comebacks” in football and heart health. Once nicknamed a “quarterback whisperer,” he is now retired from fulltime coaching (although still a front-office consultant for Tampa Bay), and did a round of media interviews for Novartis, including one with People and Forbes.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Head of Quality Systems

Lonza

Lexington, MA, USA

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Amy West, Novo Nordisk head of US digital innovation and transformation (Illustration: Assistant Editor Kathy Wong for Endpoints News)

October 4, 2022 12:55 PM EDT

Pharma

Marketing

Q&A: Novo Nordisk digital innovation chief Amy West discusses pharma pain points and a healthcare 'easy button’

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

Amy West joined Novo Nordisk more than a decade ago to oversee marketing strategies and campaigns for its US diabetes portfolio. However, her career path shifted into digital, and she hasn’t looked back. West went from leading Novo’s first digital health strategy in the US to now heading up digital innovation and transformation.

She’s currently leading the charge at Novo Nordisk to not only go beyond the pill with digital marketing and health tech, but also test, pilot and develop groundbreaking new strategies needed in today’s consumerized healthcare world.

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Benjamine Liu, TrialSpark CEO

October 4, 2022 11:04 AM EDT

Deals

Pharma

Paul Hudson and TrialSpark's mutual desire to speed up development converges in three-year, six-drug goal

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

A unicorn startup that originally set out to hasten clinical studies for biopharma partners dug further into its revised path of internal drug development by linking arms with Sanofi in a pact that the biotech’s CEO said originated from the top.

TrialSpark and the Big Pharma on Tuesday committed to in-licensing and/or acquiring six Phase II/Phase III drugs within the next three years.

“I’ve known Paul Hudson for a while and we were discussing the opportunity to really re-imagine a lot of different parts of pharma,” TrialSpark CEO Benjamine Liu told Endpoints News, “and one of the things that we discussed was this opportunity to accelerate the development of new medicines in mutual areas of interest.”

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